Wes Streeting believes it was a ‘catastrophic mistake’ for Britain to leave the EU. If he becomes prime minister, Streeting will rejoin the bloc, as apparently will Andy Burnham, who also has designs on Keir Starmer’s job.
Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, described Streeting’s desire to rejoin the EU as ‘odd’. It is, but not for the reasons she stated. Nandy was against Brexit from the outset but believes it is pointless ‘reopening the circular arguments that we ended up in as a country’. The question that no Remainer has the honesty to ask is: why rejoin an organisation that is in ‘agony’?
Streeting hasn’t presented any hard evidence for the defence of the EU. Don’t hold your breath
That was the word used in September 2024 by Mario Draghi in a devastating report about the economic decline of the EU. Europe, said Draghi, required additional annual investment of at least €750 billion (£650 billion) – approximately 5 per cent of the EU’s gross domestic product – if it wished to remain competitive against the US and China. That investment was not forthcoming and in August last year Draghi – the former head of the European Central Bank – said that the EU could no longer suffer delusions of grandeur:
